24 January, 2011

The winner of our handlebar naming contest is Postino, submitted by Jeremy (1/21/11, 3:47pm). If you could e-mail annette@velo-orange.com, we'll send the handlebar to you. We're all totally amazed at the number of really good suggestions submitted.

I'll be traveling for the next week, so no blog posts. I also try to get away from e-mail when I travel, but VO's staff will be answering tech and shipping questions as always.

Below is a shot of the Grand Cru cassette hub. I'll post more about it when I return, but here is one interesting point. This hub has four identical and rather large Japanese cartridge bearings. Most hubs with low flanges don't have room for four bearings this big, so we went with a large flange design. It's also nice that they are a common size and relatively easy to replace if they ever do wear out.

I hope someday VO will have a 7-speed version with a shorter freehub body and wider spacing between the flanges for low-dish rear wheels. It would be a real blessing for us two or three fans of 5-6-7 speed cassettes.

With said hub VO could be on the cutting edge of the new trend towards a return to 1/2 step gearing. It's gonna be big, trust me !

Anon 1:32- the hub is a little louder than a Shimano Ultegra/105 freehub and quieter than a Phil, King, or DT/Hugi.

Darrell G- initially we will offer 32/36h drillings and 130 spacing. Designed to fit 8/9/10 cassettes, and 7 speed cassettes with a 4.5mm spacer. We are still working on pricing.

Anon- 1:34- The holes on the non drive side can not be in the drive side as there isn't enough room between the cassette ring drive and the spoke holes. We could have made the flanges HUGE, but that looked really really bizarre.

Anon 12:49- The freehub body will accept standard all Shimano compatible cassettes. The sealed bearings at the axle (not the freehub bearings) are usually made smaller to fit under the hub flanges on most hubs. Our flanges are larger (aka 'high flange') so there's a bit more room to fit a larger bearing that has higher load ratings.

"Anon- 1:34- The holes on the non drive side can not be in the drive side as there isn't enough room between the cassette ring drive and the spoke holes. We could have made the flanges HUGE, but that looked really really bizarre."

So, instead, you decided to make them look only a bit bizarre by making the flanges asymmetrical? Ok,but you could have just made the drillings smaller.

Looks good. Is the design drive ring based (ala Phil, Profile, etc, where the pawls engage interior teeth of a ring screwed screwed into the shell) or "ratchet-mechanism-inside-the-freehub" (where all ratcheting parts are contained within the freehub, ala Shimano, Mavic, etc)?Availability of replacement freehubs, drive rings, and drive ring removal tools, as applicable? If it's a drive ring design, does it happen to use the same removal tool as any others out there (Phil, Suzue, etc)?

The drillings are also meant to reduce weight right? I'm guessing that you could reduce more weight by having slightly smaller drillings on both sides of the hub. So, in my opinion, the hub could be lighter and symmetrical with a relatively small design change.. but as you allude to when you say that "don't like strawberry chocolate milk"... There's just no accounting for taste.

As an aside, is it just me, or are you folks getting a bit more impatient with dissenting (and potentially constructive) opinions as you get more and more popular?

It can be difficult to get a wide range of feedback. Most of it is good, but some is not always well written and not at all 'constructive'. Blog and forum postings leave a lot of language missing; body language, facial expressions, and inflection of voice is the other half of communication. Chris actively moderates this blog now. Believe me, he is pretty liberal with what actually gets posted. You should see the comments He rejects.....

I do hear ya about the symmetry issue. We went back and forth, had multiple samples made in various drilling patterns. This one is the best of the bunch in terms of aesthetics, based on our internal discussions. The smaller holes would not be the same size of our other hubs, and we would end up needing a new front hub to match it. Not to mention additional tooling costs for a smaller dia hole being milled in the hub flanges. Tooling costs and SKU count need to be taken into consideration when designing stuff. Otherwise it drives up cost and complexity for everyone (the factory, VO employees, our dealers and customers) and the potential for mistakes increases in terms of ordering, manufacturing, marketing, etc.

I'm sure if we did go that route, there would be people who would find it displeasing.

Lack of drive-side holes strengthens the side that carries the spoke load. The drilled side doesn't need the extra strength or weight. Also, non-drive holes would be easy to clean with a rag; however, holes on the other side (especially with the extra debris exacerbated by modern hollowed out cassettes) would require disassembling.

I remember reading the first teaser post on these hubs and seeing a comment regarding the placement of the drillings between spoke holes. Someone mentioned that the old maxi-cars had the drillings fall right between two spoke holes in an effort to minimize weak spots between the two types of holes. Your hubs are not symmetrical and there are some spots where it looks like the the material gets pretty narrow between the holes. I'm no materials engineer and don't have any opinion one way or another, I was just hoping someone might speak to the issue and offer some assurance that this was tested during the development phase. If it's a non-issue, I'm quite impressed with these new hubs.

Gran Sport hubs used a similar drilling. If the holes were on the drive side, even more hollowed out, and utilizing a fixed-gear application, then I'd worry. Otherwise, the drilled side (assuming it'll be dished) carries very little load.

+1 more for a short reach/drop compact bar in 26.0 silver. There is a whole thread of folks putting ergo's and STI's on their classic and vintage bikes on bikeforums. I bet at least half of those guys would be interested in that type of bar, MYSELF INCLUDED!